TB Free England

Bovine TB (bTB) devastates thousands of farming family businesses every year and tens of thousands of cattle are culled annually in England because of it. Find out more about bTB, its impact, and why we must use all available options to make England TB free.

TB statistics for 2014 released

The annual TB statistics for 2014 have been released by Defra today.

The figures show:

The provisional incidence rate for Great Britain for January to December 2014 was 4.2% compared to 4.5% for 2013. However, Defra states that care needs to be taken not to read too much into short term figures, especially as this figure includes a number of unclassified incidents.

The number of new herd incidents in Great Britain in 2014 was 4,713 compared to 4,808 for 2013;

The number of cattle compulsorily slaughtered in Great Britain in 2014 was 32,851 compared to 32,612 in 2013.

Minette Batters, NFU Deputy President, said: “These figures are not good news for the thousands of farmers who are still dealing with the consequences of bTB on their farms every day. They are not good news for farmers in those parts of the country where bTB is still spreading. And they are certainly not good enough if we are serious in our aim to see bTB eradicated from England.”